When it came to designing the cover of my comic thriller Chop-Chop the Killer Whore, I knew exactly what I wanted.
The story features a 50-year-old police sketch of a long-sought female fugitive – a face fetching and inscrutable. That was also to be the cover.
“Don’t you dare use her face!” said this buddy in LA.
“Readers like to imagine for themselves. Keep this girl a mystery. Show only her eyes. Or her lips. Nothing more.”
The guy was a former writer for Scooby-Do. And when Scooby-Do talks, I listen.
I listened even more to my editor. She swore by this book designer team she knew in northern California.
In truth, she swears about a lot of things, but this time she used words of multiple syllables.
“They’re fantastic! Magnificent! Spectacular! Hire them! You can’t go wrong!”
So, yes, I hired them and… yes, it went wrong. They did indeed design my cover, but…
It took them 32 tries.
This is how it began – attempt No. 1:
They asked me to summarize the contents. They also asked for key excerpts which would highlight the main character. They then wished me to present a collection of covers from well-known books that I felt eye-grabbing. All this, they said, would help them sculpt and polish their design.
Wow, I was impressed. I dove right in.
Over several days, I honed my plot into a tight single page. I cut and pasted critical scenes that threw spotlights on my mystery gal. I picked through book sites to find covers that that got my heart thumping.
I packaged all this in a zip file and emailed it off. That night I lay back in bed and wondered how long it would take them to produce. The documents I had sent were pithy but intense.
Could they wade through them in a week? Or would it take longer?
In a mere five hours, I had my answer. When I arose to catch my morning train, there, waiting in my inbox, was their initial design.
Which I greeted with eye blinks. And then a question, in all-caps:
“WHAT IS THIS?”
“This is eye-catching; that’s what this is,” typed the designer. “The pink and yellow will shock people awake.”
“Did I ask for shock? I wanted fetching.”
“It’s there. The eyes, the brows, the lips. How can a reader resist?”
“But this isn’t human. It’s more like the Sea Hag from Popeye. Not only that, the Sea Hag is pissed.”
“No, it’s a killer whore. Just the way I picture one. I mean… You have “killer whore” in your title, right?”
Which showed – of all the material I had sent– just how much this man had read.
“What? You don’t like it?”
I did not. And it would take him only 31 more tries to create something I did.
Now YOU decide. The Sea Hag VS. Chop-Chop. Which do you prefer?
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